


Autumn Dark

by stateofintegrity



Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Dubious Consent, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:53:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27371479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity
Summary: Charles takes jealousy a touch too far before realizing his fears are quite groundless.
Relationships: Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	1. Chapter 1

Corporal Maxwell Klinger laughed as he navigated the autumn dark of the 4077th. It was almost his third year in the camp; he could (and had) navigated it naked, blindfolded, and once at gunpoint. Tonight he was feeling too good for any missteps - high on admiration and the new costume that slunk and slid over his hips, the metallic jingle of glass baubles and metal bracelets on the thin wrists the Major sometimes made love to for ten minutes at a stretch. 

His tent was dark except for the stove embers, but he wasn’t playing in soot in  _ this _ color. It was too delicate for wood ash. He’d change - then tackle the night’s rustic chores. He played with the camellia in his hair. Charles always brought him the best silk flowers when he had to travel, but this one was real - a gift from an admiring Lieutenant Colonel he’d danced with once in Tokyo. The man had kept telling him he had the prettiest eyes - a doe’s eyes - and Klinger had laughed, thinking of Charles.  _ If your eyes were jewels, honey, the Hope diamond would be forgotten in a flash.  _

He hoped the Major turned up to cuddle and maybe read to him. The war had been blessedly quiet so they’d had their share of quiet evenings, too. It felt, to Max, like the universe was paying him back for some of the war’s early days of shuddering, sleepless fear, aching cold,  _ abuse _ . He smiled as he thought of laying in the bombed out ambulance, holes in its roof, while Charles taught him the constellations… thought of putting mascara on Charles’ lashes (just for fun) … thought of pulling vanilla taffy together… chilling cola in the creek and putting two straws in one green glass bottle… playing Monopoly with Charles’ actual paycheck… Charles praising him for the way he mended and shined his dress uniform… 

“Maxwell, come here.” 

He jumped, bracelets ringing as if with nervous laughter as they slid up his thin arm. He went with an outreached hand. “Headache, Major?” Usually  _ he  _ was the one who got migraines so bad that he hated even thin moonlight because it seemed to go for his eyes like silver knives, but he supposed Charles could be affected too. Certainly, he could think of no other reason the man would be sitting in the dark. 

His wrist was caught - even though he never saw the Major move. And more from shock than pain, he gave a birdlike cry of surprise when he tried to get loose… and earned only the feel of well-manicured nails biting crescent kisses, white as thorns, white as scars, into the underside of his wrist. 

The fingers of his trapped hand vainly struggled but could secure no grip on Charles' forearm. “Hey! Let  _ go _ , Major!” 

“Interesting.” Charles didn’t let go; didn’t even seem to register the other hand shoving at his shoulder. “That you can fend me off, the poor fool in your bed, but you permit so much from so many others. Does anyone above the rank of Colonel get a free pass?” 

The coolness of his tone made an almost eerie contrast to the unyielding grip he had on his lover’s arm; Klinger felt that touch down to the bone. “What are you talking about? Are you drunk?”

“Considered it, watching you work the room. Watching all those hands slip over your thighs. Touch your hair. Decorate you.” He reached up and pulled the flower loose, throwing it away into the dark. 

Klinger winced. “Hey!” 

“It was my understanding that you were mine. I did not consider that I would have to share you with all of the Far East Command. And darling?  _ I won’t _ .” 

The words, soft and vicious as a threat, hit the pretty Corporal’s ear as Charles dragged him tight against him. Max had always appreciated the surgeon’s strength; Charles could be prim, but he was no weakling. Crushed against the man’s broad chest, Klinger registered, anew, the strength in his arms as he was hauled up, legs cycling on air, straining for purchase, and tossed, limbs akimbo, onto his cot. 

Max pushed up on his elbows; it had been a while since he’d been in a fight, but his body remembered how it should go… well, it did until Charles kissed bruises just under his ear. 

Max didn’t mean to, but he threw his head back. Charles was always gentle. This was new, electric, exciting. 

“You’ve always moaned so prettily for me, my girl. But now I cannot help but wonder: when you closed those dark eyes of yours, was it to imagine something better than mere oak leaves at my shoulder?” 

Anyone would have moaned under that mouth, Klinger thought … and shifting pronouns  _ in a fight _ was just unfair. The rest though _. The Major’s…  _ it was a struggle even to think it…  _ jealous _ ?!? 

There was one way to find out. Telling his body to cool it on the combat front (slugging a Major was a bad idea whether you were sleeping with him or not), he put two toes out on a rather high limb. “A girl’s gotta keep her options open, Major. I mean, we’ve had some good times,”

Charles cut him off with a growl, shoving him back against what little excuse for a wall the tent possessed. “Your options I could accept - p’raps even deserve given your beauty and youth - but not, pet, your  _ legs _ .”

As if it had been an order, Max obligingly brought his nylon-clad legs together, crossing his ankles so fetchingly that he might have been photographed for afternoon tea… if Charles had allowed him to sit up. The Major made a cruely amused sound. “Demure now? Spilled wine cannot be so easily placed back in the bottle. One might think you would remember that from your radiator adventure.” He found his wrists again, pinned them over his head. “I would have drank that wine - engine heated, oil slick - out of your hands just for the chance that one of your fingers might brush my lips. Are your Generals and Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels as devoted?” 

Max twisted, tried for a freedom that didn’t materialize. “None of them ever sprained my damn wrists,” he shot back. 

Charles just clamped down harder. “Keep still.” 

“This is my cot, Major. In my tent.”

“Certainly. And you said you were mine. Tonight, at least, I intend to take you at your word.” 

Max knew that he could end this - and quickly. He had meant those words (“I’m yours, Major”) and he still did, but, schemer that he was, he couldn’t help wanting to let this play out. Besides - those long fingers pinning his wrists? It was hot. And all it had taken was some harmless not-even flirtation (not on  _ his  _ part anyway)! 

“I didn’t,” he tried to say, earning another stinging kiss.

“For my part, I do not believe that your pretty mouth is getting you out of this, though I’ve no doubt it got you in.” The full length of his body pressed against the slighter man. Charles left off holding his wrists to bury the fingers of one hand in soft curls, the other stroking neck to navel. 

Charles had mapped his tough and slender frame dozens of times, and Max had gone breathless, waiting to see which path he would choose, angling his body to showcase what couldn’t bear to be neglected. Now he pretended to resist, pushing seeking hands away, whining under the Major’s bruising mouth. 

“Tired, sweetling?” Charles asked into his ear, that beautiful voice yet cold and dangerous as the sharp rocks that made a menace of the shoreline. “Did you give all your best to them and save nothing for your man?” 

He shoved the petal-soft gown up to bare his thigh then, the delicate color sweet as sorbet; it brought out the young man’s eyes, which were wide as Charles licked and sucked at the place where his nylons ended. “Your garter is missing.” 

“I loose ‘em sometimes if the dances are fast.” 

“Or give them away as tokens of remembrance?” 

Klinger groaned as fierce fingers gripped his thigh. Charles  _ was  _ jealous and it seemed that he was going to reclaim every bit of territory upon which other hands (or maybe even  _ eyes _ ) had trespassed. “Only to you,” he promised, whimpering. Those grasping fingers were pointed inward, holding tight enough to leave lurid, possessive, raspberry bruises, but they weren’t giving him anything else. 

“Oh,  _ I  _ am not the one who needs reminded. You never even glanced my way tonight! You did not even notice when I left!” 

The truth was that Klinger had known exactly where his lover sat and had delighted in the feel of his eyes upon him, dancing just for him, thinking about all the pleasures Charles had of him that dancing only hinted at. But a room full of brass wasn’t a good place to flirt with your boyfriend; Klinger had tried some crazy schemes in his time, but he’d never do anything to endanger the man he loved. 

He could tell Charles as much now, remind him of his care (crazy Klinger in dresses could get away with things no other serviceman would dare and if they were looking at him, then Charles was quite safe), or he could explore this new side of the man. “Sorry, Major baby,” he made his voice small. “I guess I got caught up.” 

Those words did something quite wild to the Major’s eyes. “That is precisely my fear, pet. You will get caught up - by arms younger and stronger and better than mine… and my arms will be empty.”  _ As will my life, my bed _ . “But tonight I still have you - I can at least force you to consider your choice.” 

This sounded suspiciously like  _ I can prove my worth to you _ . Klinger didn’t care for that. Jealousy was fun because he’d never seen Charles jealous, had assumed it was one of the lesser emotions in which Winchesters did not traffic. “I’m here, Major. I didn’t  _ choose _ the VIP tent or the back of a jeep.”

Charles looked stricken. “You were invited?!” 

“Sure. Ever since me and General Barker turned all those heads at Tokyo. They want me for  _ the story _ , Major. To say they got close enough to see the stubble on my cheek or the runs in my stockings.”

_ To put their finger pads on the Paris lace of your panties… we’ve had good times, had our fun… but they can give you Tokyo or even the States, champagne flutes and fireworks. All I’ve got is the way I need you to breathe.  _

Well, if this was going to be his last night with this lovely creature, he intended, at least, that Max remember it. 

Then a teasing, stocking-clad leg brushed between his thighs. “Of course, there’s always somebody who tries to get closer, I guess. Get a  _ better _ story.” 

“Brighten your lips as a souvenir?” Charles guessed into his ear, making him jump and shiver at the way the Major could, so easily, hold so much of him down. “Pinch your cheeks?” 

“Nothing you haven’t seen in Post Op. Can’t blame ‘em for trying, right?”

“P’raps not.” There was that accent that made his toes curl - Atlantic and Ivy League… tinged with something dark and new. “But I might blame you, my incautious little girl, for forgetting to whom those lips belong.” 

Klinger whimpered; he couldn’t help it. 

“But then,” Charles stroked over his nose and down his face, an exquisitely gentle motion to contrast with what he had planned, “the blame may not be yours, entire. It is entirely possible that I have been remiss in instructing you.” He traced his lips, thought of the times he’d licked sweet lip gloss from their center. “So, pretty girl, let us begin again. Open your mouth.”

Klinger almost did it out of shock and lust. Charles never gave commands; in bed he was usually all poetry and soft sighs, attentive and considerate. Max loved him for it, too, but this… this could be really fun. 

“No?” Charles didn’t look surprised - only amused. “Too worn out from kissing all that brass pet?”

Klinger tried to guess at his next stratagem. As a Major, Charles could order him. As a doctor… well, Max hadn’t yet confided that old chestnut of a fantasy; Charles was proud enough of his skills without being told that he wanted him in white. 

Charles just flipped him onto his stomach, fingers lingering to tease his abdomen. “S-sir?” 

“Awfully generic, darling. Does it help you keep from getting all of those names and ranks mixed up?” 

“Major? What are you gonna do to me?” 

“To you? Nothing. It was my intention to ready  _ myself  _ using your sweet, promiscuous mouth… but I suppose it is not necessary.” 

Klinger heard the familiar sounds of Charles undoing his belt and shivered, trying to crane for a glimpse. Charles - using very little force to do so - turned him around. Then he proceeded to dampen those long fingers (Klinger could see it in his mind, the wet shine of them), wrap them around himself, and call for Max. 

To his credit, the Corporal tried to get his knees under himself. He wanted to answer, would have gone on hands and knees to take Charles into his mouth - but he’d refused and Charles was honoring that refusal. And making him listen. 

And he said the prettiest things. 

“You should be so proud, Maxwell. You gave me nothing tonight - not a touch, not a kiss, not your sweet legs wrapped around me, your skirts brushing my hips, and I’m still down on my knees for you.”

“You ruined me, tonight, with your dancing and your smile - and you didn’t even glance over to see your work!” 

“I know that I have never been beautiful enough for you, dear girl, but you have allowed me to pretend. Buried inside you, I  _ felt  _ beautiful and your eyes said I was as they looked up at me. Were they lying, Max? Were you imagining someone else? Tell me who and I will do my best to pretend. Better in your arms a counterfeit than imagining other arms around you.” 

_ That _ was painful to hear. “Please let me touch you. Charles, please?” 

“What did you say, darling? You have a name for me? An identity worthy of your bed?” 

But he didn’t give Max time to catch his breath and speak all three parts of his name - plus his rank. Instead, he lost all the air in his lungs in a breathy moan as Charles turned him  _ again _ (effortlessly, too - since when had  _ this  _ been part of the man’s repertoire?) and did something he’d never done. Klinger’s eyes darted from the hand at his chest to the dress that had shimmied up his thigh, ruffles like rose petals in a hard rain, to that place where they were somehow impossibly joined. 

Whining, Max tried to lift himself up to kiss the Major’s face, missed, got his chin, licked at him and tasted salt, begged him to keep going. Charles pushed him back down. Klinger stared at him with wide eyes. The Major knew just where and just how to do him… but he wasn’t. 

“I see how it is handsome,” Max teased. “You tear my dress, you don’t waste any time, and now you’re not gonna look out for me either?” 

“If a girl mustn’t limit her options, a man must, ah, sometimes take what he can. You are from  Toledo, no?” He drove into him, made him feel it. “You can endure this.” 

Klinger clutched his shoulder, panted at a sudden, welcome fullness. He could endure all night long, but he thought Charles might actually need him to do something else. “What happened,” Holy Toledo, it was hard to breathe, “to being an officer and a gentleman?” 

“I gathered from tonight that I was not of a high enough rank to rate.” 

Klinger closed his eyes to feel more fully. “Oh, you rate, Major baby. You shoulda let me show you instead of trying to take care of things yourself.” He opened his eyes. “Want me to show you now? Show you just how much I’m yours?” He slid his legs down from his shoulders to clasp his waist, to drag him closer. 

“Show me,” Charles agreed, sounding almost hoarse with want. But when he moved to separate them, Klinger shook his head, dark hair flopping over one eye. “Huh-uh. Stay right with me. I’ll keep you warm.” 

“Max…” 

“I’m yours, Charles. Just yours.” He spoke slowly, almost rhythmically, and in between the words he sucked on his fingers - one at a time until they were damp. He stroked nice and soft at first, holding those impossible eyes, promising his heart, his body, his life. “You’re the only one I want to touch me. You’re the only one I think of when I touch myself. And you were on to something there, taking me hard.” He continued to touch himself, to praise Charles, to cry out for him - and jealous as he’d been, Charles could tell that he meant it. Sweating, teetering, Klinger smiled up at him. “Finish me off? Hard as you can?” When Charles hesitated, he rocked against him. “Come on. Fuck me, Winchester.” 

Charles kissed him into stillness, throbbing inside of him. “Only if you will agree to become one.” 

But he didn’t wait for an answer- and this time he did “look after” his young lover, aligning them perfectly, making Max clench his toes. And he made sure his sweet girl was satisfied before he followed; he’d been ungentlemanly enough for one night. 

Beneath him, sweetly wrecked, Max’s dark eyes were still clenched shut but he was grinning like mad when he asked, “Did you just propose with your dick inside me, Charles?” 

“It would, ah, appear so. Feel free to say yes before I move.” 

Klinger hauled him down against him, mindless of the mess of them. “Oh, no, Major. I’m fine with you playing rough with me - you’re great at it - but I’m gonna need a real proposal before I stick you with me ‘til death do us part.” 

“Maxwell, this cot has seen today’s share of little deaths, I think. And if we do not part to change, we may be bound beyond the considerations of matching bands. You will have your real proposal, however, I promise.” 

“And you know  _ you _ had me, faithfully, without it, right?”

“Yes.” He looked a little ashamed. “I, ah, I lost my head a bit. Old insecurities… and you are so beautiful. You could have  _ anyone _ , Max.”

“And I’d choose you every time.” 

“Unless the choice was between me and a man with a section eight.”

“Well, sure, but I’d just pack you in my luggage and take you home. Radar sent home a jeep and one of the Captains’ friends sent home a whole pagoda to be a restaurant. You’d be easy.” He kissed his cheek. “It was kinda flattering, seeing you lose your cool over me,” he confided. 

Charles blushed, still, but offered, “P’raps if it were a game?”

“Right. I kinda treated it like it was anyway. You wouldn’t really be angry. I would pretend to struggle. You would say ridiculous things in my ear…”

“I can agree to that, pet.”

“And I won’t let anyone else put flowers in my hair.”

Charles beamed. “Thank you.” 


	2. Winter Bright

“What has happened here?” 

“What? A guy can’t decorate for the holidays?”

Charles surveyed the changes to Maxwell’s tent: candles, a winter white rug, poinsettias (fabric with glittery centers), wine. They were cheap items all, dearly budgeted (or traded for) he knew from the small amount of money that Max didn’t send home to help his mom. 

“There’s something I want to ask you, Major.” 

“Oh? Christmas wish?”

_ All the Christmases _ . Klinger swatted his hands away from the deep green velvet of the skirt his fingers were playing in. “Something like.”

“There has never been anything you have been afraid to ask me, dear one. You trusted me with the many aspects of your identity, as I recall.” 

It was a perfect opening. “You’re the only one who’s ever accepted all that I am. I don’t think there’s anyone like you… and there’s nobody else for me. Major Charles Emerson Winchester III, would you marry me?”

“Max?”

“I know. I know. It’s not legal. But we’d know, for us. I’ll… I’ll sign whatever you want so you don’t have to worry about the money. And you can… you can marry somebody else for your family if you’ve gotta, when we go home,”

Charles kissed the young man just to stop him from saying any more. One hand in his hair, the other framing his face, he touched his lips to his forehead, his nose, his jaw. “Darling, sometimes you say the most horrible things.” 

“I don’t wanna lose you, Charles.” This was almost a whine, a plea. 

“I had every intention, Maxwell, of  _ proposing _ to you.” He’d told him as much months ago.

“Shoulda let you. You would’ve done it better, probably.” 

“I would not trade hearing you ask.” 

Klinger appreciated the way he squeezed his fingers. “You haven’t said yes, Major.”

“I rather assumed there would be a ring.”

“Oh, geez. I  _ am  _ bad at this. Here. They don’t match, but,”

Charles opened the little box. Inside were two bands - one with blue stones, the other with dark brown stones. “Your eyes and mine?”

“Yours are impossible. I did the best I could.”

“Help me put it on?”

Max shivered. “The last time you said that…”

He remembered that very early night in their courtship. “It felt like the respectable thing.” 

Max giggled. Charles’ eyes, when he’d learned how very slight his sexual history was, had been something to behold. 

“Your shaking hands were very flattering.”

“I was shakin’ all over, Major baby. Kinda like you are now. You okay?” 

“Just very happy.”

“Because of me?” 

“Yes, though I feel like I ought to do the honorable thing and try to talk you out of this. There are several strikes against me, Max.” 

“Waste of time.”

“I… I still deeply regret the way I acted… when those generals were on the base.”

“You got scared. But I wasn’t scared with you. Not for a minute, Major baby. You’d never hurt me.” 

Charles touched his hair again, the green leaves there. “Mistletoe, hmmm? I am glad you stayed inside today.” 

Then he kissed him once for every year they hoped to have together, once for every syllable in the ridiculously long name Max would bear when they joined their names and lives, and once for every white berry in his Christmas crown. 

End! 


End file.
